The last days of a tall tree

Dave Howard's grandfather was a world champion axeman - although long gone are the days when his profession relied on the axe. At nine o'clock on the morning this story begins, the Orbost logger with a red-white beard and pale blue eyes is at the base of this tree, wielding his chainsaw.

The tree is a shining gum. It is 210 years old and 40 metres high, and it will not live out the day. But it is not the only one under threat. In the remote forests of East Gippsland's Errinundra Plateau the fates of old-growth giants such as this are linked to those of countless forest plants and animals, as well as the timber workers such as Howard and the industry that sustains him.

In a five-part Age series, reporter Melissa Fyfe and photographer Sandy Scheltema track the fate of this one gum, from the forest to the mill, the woodchip plant and beyond. Along the way they meet the loggers whose incomes depend on the felling, and the conservationists determined to stop them.
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